News Release

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Web Video Leads to Personnel Complaint Investigation NR10295jr

Los Angeles: Yesterday morning a video depicting an encounter between a police officer and a street photographer came to the attention of the Los Angeles Police Department. The video was taken in approximately February of 2010. After viewing that video tape, the LAPD immediately initiated an internal investigation to be conducted by Internal Affairs.

The video depicts an encounter between a street photographer and an officer of the Los Angeles Police Department. On the video, two LAPD officers can be seen conducting what appears to be a traffic stop in the area of Hollywood Boulevard and Normandie Avenue when their attention is drawn to a street photographer with a camera in his hand.

On the video, which appears to have been captured by a second video camera, one officer can be seen dividing his attention between an apparent traffic violator and the street photographer who had taken an interest and was photographing the enforcement activity. At a point in the video footage, the involved officer directed some words toward the photographer that warrants an investigation by Internal Affairs and a review by the officer’s chain of command.

Commander Richard Webb said, “Internal Affairs will conduct an exhaustive and impartial investigation into this matter. Constitutional policing is very important to Chief Beck and we examine cases through that lens. We will keep the Inspector General informed of the progress of the investigation which will ultimately be presented to the Chief of Police to determine if any discipline or retraining should take place.”